118 The Game Laws. [FEB. 



Therefore, it appears, it is not rank that makes us worthy of the qua- 

 lification ; for a peer so far disgraced as to deserve his title a peer, of 

 Jirst creation is not qualified. It is not land ; for the owner of a hun- 

 dred acres may be without it : it is not wealth ; for a man may have 

 100,000/., and not possess it. As it is neither rank, nor wealth, nor cha- 

 racter, that give the right; so at last we have a consequence not 

 entirely opposed to reason it may be held without the connexion of 

 any one of these distinctions : a common swindler may (and hundreds of 

 common swindlers do) enjoy it. And this is the law of England, in 

 the year 1828 ; and the law, which the higher branch of her legislature 

 refuses to endure any alteration of! 



The result is that which might be anticipated the law is hated, and 

 laughed at, and violated, from one extremity of the kingdom to the 

 other. Men in a free country have always a feeling in favour of justice. 

 They are content to see preferences granted against themselves, where 

 fair reason can be shewn for such preference. But here here, the whole 

 arrangement seems to be contrived in a spirit of the greatest possible 

 contempt and insult of reason and justice ! as though to say " We have 

 the power : mark now, how far we can and will abuse it !" Why is it 

 that the holders of six hundred millions of government stock are to be 

 excluded from those privileges which beggars may possess ? Why has 

 not the proprietor of government stock, or India stock, or Bank stock, as 

 sound and reasonable a title to shoot or eat game, as we will not talk of 

 the owner of land but as the owner of nothing or the owner of houses 

 in Holborn or Cheapside ? On what principle is the arrangement founded, 

 that a merchant or manufacturer, expending an income of 5,000/. 

 annually, is not qualified to shoot game : but may have a bill clerk, at 

 fifty pounds a year, in his employ (the son of some M. D. without prac- 

 tice, or petty mayor of a corporation) who is qualified to shoot it for 

 him ? Half the sharpers who hang about the race-grounds and the 

 gaming-houses the disgrace of the police, and the nuisance of the 

 country are " qualified" men. The Insolvent Court is crowded with 

 " qualified" people : and treats them with great kindness for it insists 

 upon retaining two out of three that appear. We have a list before us 

 of the " qualified persons" who have been charged at the Old Bailey, 

 and at the London police-offices, with swindling, " horse-chaunting," 

 forgery, and theft, in the course of the last ten years. It is a curious 

 document ; ;Jbut would be of no value, without the names of the parties 

 (which humanity and justice forbid us to publish) ; but a little trouble 

 of reference will enable any person, who may be anxious to do so, to 

 construct a similar record for himself. We would desire, however, merely 

 to hear the reason the "most exquisite reason" why persons of this 

 description should enjoy a privilege, or mark of distinction, of which one 

 half of the most respectable and meritorious subjects in the country are 

 deprived ? 



A state of law so purely contemptible merits to have no weight and it has 

 none. The law against shooting game without qualification is obeyed scarcely 

 by any one : that against purchasing it by not a single individual, we 



office. The anomalies which arise out of this arrangement are ridiculous in the highest 

 degree. The son of an esquire worth 1000 a year, in funded property, while the father 

 lives although he is without a shilling must be qualified. At his father's death, although 

 he becomes possessed of the property of 1,000 a year, he loses his qualification ! 



